The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 this Friday, here are 25 of the absolute best images it has so far delivered

Apr 24, 2015 08:56 GMT  ·  By

25 years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope left our planet nestled atop NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery. It has since been circling our planet at an altitude of some 350 miles (about 560 kilometers).

Apart from producing enough data for scientists to publish nearly 13,000 research paper tackling the mysteries of the cosmos, the Hubble Space Telescope has delivered over 1 million images revealing the anatomy of the universe.

Although moving at a speed of about 17,000 miles per hour (more than 27,000 kilometers per hour), Hubble can snap mind-bogglingly accurate images of its targets.

Since this April 24 marks the anniversary of the telescope's 25th year in space, let's take a few minutes to have a look at 25 of the most astounding space images obtained with the help of this scientific instrument.

The images, available in the gallery below, show galaxies, nebulae and even planets. Yes, the Hubble Space Telescope has been a busy bee these past 25 years and for this we can only be grateful.

After all, it's not like we Earth dwellers can know the universe that we live in otherwise than with the help of scientific instruments like this iconic telescope.

As NASA astronomer Jennifer Wiseman pointed out in a recent interview, the Hubble Space Telescope has forever transformed the way we look at the cosmos and how we view our place in it.

Here are 25 of Hubble's best space images (26 Images)

The Hubble Space Telescope
The Westerlund 2 star clusterThe Pillars of Creation
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